Stop searching for phrases and chasing after words.
Take the backward step and turn the light inward.
Your body-mind of itself will drop
off and your original face will appear.
If you want to attain just this,
immediately practice just this.
- Dogen (1200-1253)

Monk In The World

To be a monk is to have time to practice for your transformation and healing. And after that to help with the transformation and healing of other people.

Thich Nhat Hanh

Saturday, June 29, 2013

We've been born as human beings to realize who we are and to experience how we participate in the divine. This is what I see as the meaning of life. We are here to become true human beings, to go beyond our individual egos, and to realize that our true essence is the essence of God. When I say this, I am saying it to people who probably have not had a mystical experience themselves. But I still want to say it to encourage them to believe in the possibility of such an experience and to live their lives in such a way that a mystical experience will be possible for them. For this purpose, it is indispensable to offer them something they can trust. I thus have the following words of encouragement for people who come to me with their questions about the meaning of life: "Give yourself over to this process of life and trust that it is God's process!" In traditional religious language that means to obey the will of God, not with gnashing of teeth but with a basic, unreserved trust that life has meaning. To bring people closer to this trust, teaching them how to let go, how to open themselves, seems to be the most important task a spiritual teacher can take upon himself or herself.

From Mysticism for Modern Times: Conversations with Willigis Jager, pg. 72